


I'll know my name as it's called again

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:27:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel, he is called, and he still starts to hear that name because he has been reborn, remade and worked over so many times that he wonders if he can still claim it as his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll know my name as it's called again

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a short fill for the prompt "when we die, we come back different, like, with greener eyes, or as some far off star," but spiraled into something else and then before I knew it, I was throwing my hat into the "return of Cas" ring. 
> 
> spot the cross-fandom reference!

There's a saying on earth that he's heard a few times, that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. 

For hundreds of thousands of years he was something bright and unknowable, never changing, with all of the wonder of the cosmos contained within his being. He was steady, reliable, unflinching - a warrior in every sense of the word that could be understood by human language. 

He had no desire to change a single particle of his being for he was made by God's will and to stray, to thwart such a creation, was unconscionable. 

It seems absurd, now, to think that he could ever have been so arrogant. 

+

Castiel, he is called, and he still starts to hear that name because he has been reborn, remade and worked over so many times that he wonders if he can still claim it as his own. 

+

This is the first time: A crash of thunder, an abandoned barn, and a damaged soul that believes that it has been tattered utterly beyond repair.

Castiel wants fiercely to prove otherwise and the desire is so sudden that it catches him by surprise to realize that it is his own.

(It's the beginning of the end but he didn't know it then). 

\+ 

This is the second time: His last memory is of standing in defiance of everything he has ever known, without a plan or a thought coherent enough to form a prayer, as a light that he once held sacred threatens to overtake him. 

He awakens, remade, alone in the body that he has taken for his own, and is overcome with a painfully human urge to laugh. 

\+ 

This is the third time: A bug-bite that won't cease itching on his hand, a searing pain, and then faith restored after so many endless months of heart-wrenching doubt. 

Third time's the charm, as Dean would say, and he vows to do right by this chance that he's been given. He tells himself that this will be the last time. 

(This is not the last time). 

\+ 

I only wanted to make things right, he tells himself, but it is too late and the darkness that lingers around the edges slithers into his consciousness, overtaking him, his Grace corrupted and polluted. The last thing he knows are the depths of a black lake, the murky water filling the lungs of his borrowed vessel, and then nothing, nothing, nothing, except for a heavy regret. 

It should have been the end. 

(It wasn't). 

\+ 

When he comes to in a drab hospital room, a thin paper gown hanging off of his frame, they tell him that his name is James Novak, but he knows with a certainty that belies his lack of memory that this is a lie. 

He knows that James Novak is not his name. He knows that he should not be as fascinated by a hand over his chest, feeling his heart beat steadily, but it feels wrong for all that the nurses assure him that it's natural. He knows that the Bible that they leave on his nightstand is full of lies but it strikes a chord with him nonetheless. 

He knows the name "Dean" is important but he doesn't know why. 

His doctor tells him to call her Jules and she speaks to him in a level, patient voice, so unlike the indulgent one that others take on. She tells stories of her family and of her day, and when she talks about taking her son David to the Winchester Mystery House, his heart clenches and that makes about as much sense as anything else. 

He lives in that hospital for almost a year, getting shuffled from ward to ward, no one knowing quite where to put him. He's long since recovered from his injuries but his memory escapes him, and no one has come knocking. He's heard mutterings of an asylum but he's kept his dreams to himself - he's not crazy, even if the things that he sees when he closes his eyes are. 

Then one day an older man, plaid-clad and grizzled, comes lumbering into his room, takes one look at him, and lets out a long-suffering sigh. "You idjit." 

+

The man's name is Bobby and he brings papers with him displaying a name clearly. _Cassidy Singer_ with a picture and everything, his own familiar face looking back at him from the documents. Bobby claims that they've been looking all over him but they had no idea where to start. 

It sounds convincing and solid and there's something about Bobby that's familiar, that seems trustworthy, so he nods his head in all the right places, and then he's being shuffled towards an old pick-up truck in the hospital parking lot. 

He reaches towards the car-door handle but his hand shakes, and he stops. "Thank you but. I don't remember anything. Just - I don't remember much. I can't be what you're looking for." 

Bobby turns to him with a searching gaze. "What did you think of that little song and dance back there? Everything I said, what was your reaction?" 

"It wasn't true." 

Bobby nods. "You ain't wrong. What _do_ you remember?" 

"Just - flashes. Flashes of things that can't be possible." 

"What if they were?" 

"Then I've led a very complicated life." 

Bobby snorts. "That's one way to put it. Get in the car, idjit." 

"Wait." His hand is still paused on the handle. "What's my name? My real name?"

"Castiel." 

He mouths it to himself, mulls it over, and finds that it almost sounds right. 

(It's about time something did). 

They drive all night, pulling into Singer Salvage just as the sun begins to rise. Castiel lets his eyes trace over the ragged shapes of the building, and just like Bobby, it feels familiar, safe, even if he doesn't remember it exactly, not with any real clarity. 

"I've been here before," he says, and Bobby grunts in agreement. 

Castiel hops out of the truck and slams the door shut behind him. When he turns around, there's a man stepping out onto the porch. 

Something slots into place and Castiel _remembers_ , without a shadow of a doubt, who this man is. 

"Dean," he says. 

Bobby snorts. "Shoulda known you'd remember him." 

Castiel walks quickly towards the porch, towards the only thing in this world that he knows for certain, and climbs the stairs in one step. "Dean," he says again, simply because he can. 

"Cas," Dean says, and there is something raw and wounded in that voice, but _Cas_ , yes, that sounds exactly right. 

There is a moment, a pause when neither of them knows quite what to do, before Dean reaches over and pulls Cas into a hug, all warmth and soft plaid. 

(This is how he begins - again).


End file.
